Scientific assessment of school performance SATs

The Scientific Assessment of School Performance: SATs
and Exams Update

I have written before, and a copy of my letter has been published on
the website lettertothepm.co.uk
together with a letter from the Department for Children, Schools and
Families who were asked to reply for you.

Unfortunately, the DCSF did not argue with my assertion that parents
would no longer have a scientifically acceptable assessment of their
child's progress in school beyond their primary school.

1.There has been little attempt by Ms Sealey in her letter to address
my concerns, which are shared by many parents, that they will no longer
have external examination results which they can use to determine whether
their child is making progress at their secondary school. On the contrary,
Ms Sealey and I quote, observes that: "The Secretary of State has only
announced that we have ended schools' requirement to run national tests
for 14 year olds, with immediate effect.”[sic]. "Only", as if this event
is of little consequence?

2.These examination results are of scientific interest; after all SAT
is an abbreviation for Standard Assessment Test or Standard Attainment
Test (or task), whereas internal assessments (Teacher Assessment) are
bound to be suspect. Here is a grass roots comment from an experienced
teacher on the scrapping of SATs at Key Stage 3:

3. "The situation can only get worse now. Who is going to pay for, and
do, the one-to-one teaching, and the individual care of pupils? Looks like
a money-saving exercise to me that will lower standards. Who is going to
test the teachers' performance - I don't see anything outlined? Maybe it’s
a move to test teachers more thoroughly - I hope so!"

4. But opinion is one thing; facts are another. I have been given
permission to publish a letter sent to a Head of English at a large
secondary school, in a relatively well to do catchment area in a
Conservative controlled county. The letter reveals the underlying flaws in
the notion that internal assessment by teachers (Teacher Assessment) can
adequately replace the Key Stage 3 SATs. (I have included the letter as
the fifth page in this letter)

5. I sympathise with the parents. How does that English teacher, who
should have detailed assessment records for each of her pupils, think that
her pupil is being taught by her properly when there has been no
improvement in the pupil’s Key Stage 3 levels since year 7? At least she
should have referred her misgivings, if she had any, to her head of
English.

6. Even though OFSTED has remarked about Record Keeping and Assessment
in two earlier inspections of this school there are still shortcomings in
English and other departments. How else can one report this sorry state of
affairs, except as a failure of the supervision and management of teaching
staff? But then, this is exactly the sort of situation that does arise and
existing controls fail to rectify. Although OFSTED finds the same problems
on each visit there is little improvement.

7. Indeed, the English teacher, is in an ideal position to get to know
his or her pupils, as work can be set to reveal the thoughts that pupils
have and the activities they engage in. In addition, the English teacher’s
contact time is more than that for other subjects. As although English
usually has the same amount of lesson time as maths or science that time
is more personal. There is no excuse for an English teacher not knowing
his or her pupils and certainly no excuse for not being aware of a pupil’s
past assessments in English if not that pupil’s levels in other subjects.

8. The observation: “The idea behind SATs is to rest the teachers” is
not meant to be humorous. Teachers are entitled to relief from the
continuous work that they are obliged to do as part of the way that
education has been managed by successive labour Ministers. Does your
present Minister of State for Education Rt Hon Ed Balls or rather Minister
of State for Children Schools and Families think that children and parents
will be better served by placing upon teachers the additional burden of
assessment without the feedback that comes from the SATs. The SAT results
help to confirm that their assessment of pupils is accurate or not.
Moreover, how much extra work will that entail?

9. In this particular example, as evidenced by the parent’s letter, the
teacher’s assessment is in fact correct at least on the day that the pupil
took the English SAT. How the teacher can explain that she has not managed
to improve the national curriculum attainment level for this particular
pupil is another matter. But at least, at present, she has the benefit of
the SAT result to maintain that her assessment is correct. Assuming that
the SAT has been marked correctly!

10.Without the Key Stage 3 SAT, teachers will not have the support of
an independent test when making assessments in future.

11. Surely it is the least that the government can do is to ensure that
parents are given an assessment of their child’s progress at each Key
Stage and that proper scientifically designed SATs are given at Key Stage
3 Key as well as Key Stage 2? This is what we had!

12. By scrapping, the Key Stage 3 SATs parents will only know what
their child’s achievement is after taking GCSE and other exams at key
Stage 4, by which time it will be too late to alter a child’s
opportunities to develop to their full potential and ensure that teachers
are performing well.

13. I would like to read the scientific basis for justifying the
removal of a scientifically designed test to determine the attainment of
our children at Key Stage 3. However, I understand that this is the
reason:

“The national tests at age 14 in English, mathematics and science,
marked externally, were felt to be unnecessary as students also sit
national examinations at age 15 and 16 (GCSEs and A-levels). The
government felt that these examinations adequately demonstrate performance
at secondary school”.

So that sums it up. The SATs are irrelevant because the Government
believes that their purpose is to demonstrate performance at secondary
school?

14. Well, I think, and I am sure that parents think also, that the SATs
are meant to determine progress by measuring their child’s attainment and
that this information may be used to investigate why their child is not
reaching the predicted level for their age. Whether this is because of
poor teaching or other factors, parents surely have the right to this data
and not the possibly inaccurate or even biased assessment by the child’s
teachers under a TA (teacher assessment) scheme.

15. Furthermore, the abolition of the KS3 SATs will also mean the
removal of the school league tables for this crucial time in a child’s
education. Parents will no longer have a means to check whether the local
school is performing well or not, except for GCSE and other examination
results at the end of Key Stage 4. Head teachers and Governors will no
longer have the benefit of SAT results to improve the performance of their
staff; it will all instead, be rather vague.

16. What we do have is another upheaval in the management of education
that both teachers and parents could well do without.

17. What we actually have at present is a National Curriculum that we
should compliment our government in introducing and developing, but what
we are losing is a well-established means (Key Stage 3 SATs) to measure
the attainment and progress of all pupils from when they enter primary
school until when they leave their secondary school.

18. I would go so far as to suggest that even the Key Stage 4 “tests”
(GCSE and other courses) do not necessarily provide data with the same
level of scientific importance as that which can be obtained from Key
Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 SATs. The removal of the Key Stage 3 SATs will
surely impact on the further development of the National curriculum.

19. The management and production of resources to keep the educational
system in England working is presently in place and working. For example,
CGP publish a range of educational support materials at a reasonable price
that both schools and parents use. These materials would not have been
published in the absence of a well-defined national curriculum.
www.cgpbooks.co.uk/pages/books.asp

20. Why interfere with a working assessment system by removing SATs,
which are an independent test? I don’t really believe that the government
think that SATs at key Stage 3 are irrelevant. What I do think is that the
failure of the Minister to manage the marking of last year’s tests has
fuelled the notion: let’s scrap them, problem sorted! Furthermore, it
sounds like, we’ll have a cheap alternative - Teacher Assessment, provided
that is, teachers are prepared to play ball?

21. I can well understand the reluctance of many teachers to support
SATs – its all more work and it’s also a stick to beat us with when as
evidenced by the parent’s letter results do not match up to parent
expectations. Perhaps also, we cannot afford these tests; when I was at
school, we had a few one-sheet reports a year, with remarks such as
“Maths: satisfactory”.

22. By all means, continue to develop the National Curriculum and make
modifications to it. But to scrap the means to accurately assess progress
and attainment of children that are following that national curriculum is
to return to the bad old days when parents had no real say in their
child’s education, and to disable an important means to monitor the
working of the National Curriculum is surely, with respect, nonsense!

Yours sincerely

A. Citizen

The original
reply from the DCSF is republished below The reply from the DCSF is
published below

department for
children, schools and families

Thank you for your recent letter, addressed to Gordon Brown, about the
abolition of National Curriculum (NC) tests, sometimes known as SATs. It
has been forwarded to the Department for Children, Schools and Families
for reply as we are responsible for school issues. I have been asked to
reply on this occasion.

I should explain that the NC tests for 7 year olds in Key Stage 1,
which are administered as teacher assessments, and the Key Stage 2 tests
for 11 year olds have not been withdrawn.

The Secretary of State has only announced that we have ended schools'
requirement to run national tests for 14 year olds, with immediate effect.
The current compulsory national tests at the end of Key Stage 3 will be
replaced by improved classroom assessment by teachers and frequent
reporting to parents in years 7, 8 and 9. There will be a stronger focus
on one-to-one tuition and catch-up support for children in the first years
of secondary school. This will be more flexible for schools, more
personalised for individual pupils, and provide more scope for teacher
assessment and professional judgement.

He also announced that we plan to introduce new School Report Cards, as
part of wider changes to strengthen schools' accountability to parents and
the public, raise school standards, and reform pupil testing and
assessment. We will set out detailed proposals on report cards for
consultation with schools, parents and the public by the end of this year,
leading to a White Paper in spring 2009.

Thank you for writing in with your views.

Yours sincerely

Julie Sealey

Public Communications Unit

Parent's
letter referring to the School's poor performance:

Mr. A. N. Other
Head of English
A Secondary State SchoolAny Road
Town

Dear Mr. A.N. Other

It is genuinely with great regret
and disappointment that I have to write this letter. Unfortunately, the
problems that I have highlighted previously in the English department have
now come home to manifest themselves in my daughter’s lack of progression
over the course of years 8 and 9 and ultimately her English KS3 SATS
result of 6B!!! I am sure you will agree this shows a dramatic picture of
under achievement.

Whilst I feel the figures produced
sometimes lack credibility, (the Ofsted report highlighted this) they are
all I have to go on regarding my daughter’s progression at your school.
Below I present them in their stark reality.

My Daughter's Progress at Your School

Year

Assessment event

Level of Attainment

Year 6

KS2 SATS

5

Year 8

November 07

6A

February 08

6B

July 08

6B

Year 9

November 08

6B

February 09

6B

KS3 SATS June 09

6B !!!

Predicted at KS3

7C

I had picked up on this lack of
improvement earlier in the year yet decided to sit tight and take a view
on the situation feeling confident from our previous conversations that
she would come out on target come Summer 09.

Unfortunately, as you can clearly
see from these figures my daughter has gone backwards since
November 07 at your school. Incidentally, I also feel the predicted 7C is
a prediction below her ability, my daughter is a bright, articulate and
motivated girl who has achieved 7A’s and 7B’s in English recently, yet we
have still arrived at this point. We are all disappointed and at a loss
for words at this figure. Is this also an indication of the progression
leading us through to GSCE and A level?

I would like a meeting with
yourself and Ms Teacher and a thorough explanation of the process that has
led us to these results.

Finally, I sat in the Head
Teacher’s office in the Summer before my daughter started at your school
and he assured me that she would be given the opportunity of
achieving two 7’s and an 8 in maths. Clearly we have been let down in some
form, the question is why?

Yours sincerely

A.Parent

Reply from DFCSF from Ms Sealey in response to my objections to her earlier reply

department for
children, schools and families

Thank you for your further letter of 19 July, addressed to the Prime Minister, outlining your views on National
Curriculum (NC) tests. Your letter has been forwarded to the Department for Children, Schools and Families for response as we are responsible
for all school issues.

We have always said that the assessment system is not set in stone. An Expert Group was set up by the Secretary
of State to advise the government on the future of testing and
assessment and its role in school accountability. It was established for
a period of six months and widely consulted head teachers, teachers,
parents, subject associations and academics, as well as schools engaged
in stage not age single-level test pilots. The findings were published
on 7 May.

The Expert Group reported that current NC
tests are educationally beneficial; vital for public accountability and
a key part of giving parents objective information on their children's
levels of attainment and progress. The Expert Group also stated that the
School Report Card should be developed and introduced as soon as
possible to shift the focus of public accountability away from league
tables. The full report and its recommendations can be viewed on the
Department's website at
http://publications.dcsf.gov.uk

On 30 June the 21st Century Schools White
Paper was published. This sets out how we will help create a system
which responds to the challenges of a changing global economy, a
changing society and rapid technological innovation. A system in which
every child can enjoy growing up, can achieve and which develops the
potential and talents of every child and young person and gives them the
broad skills they need for the future.

The introduction of the School Report Card, along with an overall score,
should move us on from the narrow,
simplistic view that allows the media to focus on a single academic
indicator. An overall score would establish the clear importance of
reaching a rounded understanding of each school's performance, rather
than one drawn simplistically from a narrow range of indicators, or a
single indicator.

We recognise that parents and other
stakeholders will rightly have different views about what - for them -
constitutes good outcomes for a school. Different parents will be looking
for different strengths, reflecting the specific interests, aptitudes and
needs of their children. By reporting all the underpinning performance
data on the School Report Card, different users will still be able to look
at the particular aspects of performance that interest them most
-identifying areas of a school's work that are particular strengths; or
areas in a strong school that continue to need improvement. The inclusion
of an overall score will, however, allow that detailed consideration to
take place in the context of a general understanding of the school's
overall performance.

Ministers are always pleased to hear from
people who take a keen interest in education, who offer their views and
suggestions on how the current education system could be improved.

Thank you once again for writing.

Yours sincerely

Julie Sealey

Public Communications Unit

There are a number of observations made in this letter
that need to be explained more clearly by The Department for Children
Schools and Families. The least confusing way to write a response to
Ms Sealey's further letter on this issue is to republish it below with my
comments inserted. Update: due to pressure of work I have been unable to discuss the reply in detail.